Lange’s Challenge: Accounting for Meta-laws

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (2):347-369 (2013)
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Abstract

Lange issues a novel challenge to philosophical accounts of laws of nature. He notes that the laws of nature seem to be themselves governed by laws analogous to the way that the laws govern particular facts. These higher order laws are the meta-laws of nature. He claims that if a philosophical account of laws aims to accurately characterize the laws, it should be able to account for these meta-laws. To generalize this challenge, I introduce the notion of roles played by laws of nature according to a philosophical account, and identify a number of salient roles. I then apply Lange’s challenge to two views: the regularity view and the universals view. I argue that the regularity view may be able to meet the generalized version of Lange’s challenge, and that the universals view is able to meet the challenge. 1 Meta-laws2 Lange’s Challenge3 The Roles Played by Laws and Meta-laws4 Meta-laws and the Regularity View5 Meta-laws and the Universals View6 Summary and Conclusion

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Zanja Yudell
California State University, Chico

Citations of this work

What Price Changing Laws of Nature?Olivier Sartenaer, Alexandre Guay & Paul Humphreys - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (1):1-19.
What Everyone Should Say about Symmetries.Michael Townsen Hicks - 2019 - Philosophy of Science 86 (5):1284-1294.
Symmetries as Humean Metalaws.Callum Duguid - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science 90 (1):171-187.
On the Ostrogradski Instability; or, Why Physics Really Uses Second Derivatives.Noel Swanson - 2022 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (1):23-46.

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Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
How the laws of physics lie.Nancy Cartwright - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Laws and symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
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What is a Law of Nature?D. M. Armstrong - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Sydney Shoemaker.

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